THE REGRESSION ANALYSIS AND DETERMINATION OF MECHANICAL AND PHYSICAL PROPERTIES ON GEOPOLYMER COMPOSITES UNDER THERMAL AND WATER CURING

Increasing costs due to high energy consumption and the release of harmful CO2 gases in cement production have made it necessary to explore alternative binders. This study aims to investigate the physical and mechanical properties of geopolymer mortars containing different proportions of pozzolanic wastes under different cure conditions. For this objective, fly ash obtained from the Sivas/Turkey thermal power plant and blast furnace slag obtained from the Bolu/Turkey iron-steel industries were used as the binding materials. Thermal curing and water curing were applied, and three different molar ratios (8M, 10M, 12M) of NaOH solution and Na2SiO3 were used. The results showed that the reaction products, types of alkaline activators, and reaction conditions are important factors in geopolymer mortars. The highest compressive strength recorded was 84.7 MPa in the geopolymer sample which consisted of 95% blast furnace slag blast furnace slag and 5% fly ash fly ash. Furthermore, two different binder additives (marble powder and strontium) were used and their time-dependent effects on the main binder were analysed. In addition, according to the ANOVA statistical results, the R2 value of the independent variables (Molarity, main binder ratios) on the compressive strengths accepted as the dependent variable is 81.7%. The significance value is 0.007, and these results were considered quite significant.